Tracking
by Scrawlers
Summary: After losing Rose in 27th century London, the Doctor receives a text from her that simultaneously fills him with relief and worry. Doctor/Rose.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Doctor Who or any of its properties. If I did, Steven Moffat would not be in charge right now.

**Notes: **This was written forever ago and posted to Tumblr. In an attempt to update this account with some things, I decided to post it here.

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><p><strong>Tracking<strong>

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><p>If there was one rule the Doctor gave to his companions (besides the obvious of not messing about with the past, but he figured that was a given), it was this:<p>

_Don't wander off._

It was a simple instruction, really, but nine hundred years in time and space had proven to him that there wasn't a single living being in the universe capable of following it. Even K9, the most loyal of robotic dogs, had a mind of his own and a tendency to let his circuits lead him off the charted course every now and again. Really, it was a marvel how no one seemed inclined to stick around. You'd think with the impressive sonic screwdriver and fancy Type-40 TARDIS, people would be impressed enough to stick close.

But no, they weren't. And now it had been five hours and he still had no idea where Rose Tyler was.

He wasn't panicking. They were in 27th century London—not _that _far in the future, not _that _unfamiliar—and he wasn't panicking. The Doctor made his way back to the TARDIS to make adjustments to his sonic screwdriver in hopes of tracking her better. He was sure he could do it, and ordinarily it wasn't hard; the minute sonic frequencies given off by her mobile should allow him to find her, no problem, but for some reason it was leading him in circles tonight and he couldn't figure out why. Still, it wasn't a problem; it had only been five hours since he'd last seen her in that underground club where they were investigating what he was pretty sure was an immoral alien trafficking ring (well, really, he'd brought her to 27th century London to show her the sky market—fantastic set-up, much better than the sky markets in the 25th or 28th centuries—but when he'd heard about this he knew they couldn't let it stand). He was sure she was fine. After all, it was just an alien trafficking ring, and she was just a human from another time period. What could possibly go wrong?

Everything was fine, of that he was sure. But the Doctor still threw open the TARDIS doors with a little more force than necessary and felt an irritated, offended hum from the TARDIS in the back of his mind . . .

. . . and in his coat pocket.

The Doctor froze, a frown on his lips, before he hastily scrambled his hands into his coat pockets to try and find the source of the buzzing. It took him three pockets before he finally found the right one, and secured his large fingers around Rose's tiny phone. It took all of his self-control not to hurl the phone across the console room. Of all the—of _course _the sonic screwdriver was leading him around in circles, the bloody mobile was in his _pocket _of all places! Why had she done that? _When _had she done that? Oh, when he found Rose Tyler—and mark his words, he _would _find Rose Tyler—he was going to give her an earful that would put her mother to shame. Rolling his shoulders to try and get the tension out of them, he flipped open her phone and glared at the text message, sent from an unknown number.

_'Doctor - i'm really hoping this is u cos if it isnt i accidentally slipped my jiggery-poked mobile into another blokes leather jacket last night. ...u there?'_

The tension faded from his shoulders, but it had nothing to do with how he'd rolled them. The Doctor slumped back against the console, took a deep breath, and then readjusted Rose's mobile in his hands so that he could better manipulate it with fingers too large for the tiny keypad.

_'Yeah Rose, I'm here. Where the hell did you run off to, then? And whose phone are you using?'_

Her reply mercifully came quickly.

_'this blokes mobile i left the club with.'_

Once again, restraint came in handy as the Doctor didn't break her phone in his fist.

_'Picked up another pretty boy, then?'_

_'course not. he said he had sumthin to show me and i thought it had to do with the trafficking ring u were talking about. turns out it did.'_

_'What?'_

_'hes in on it Doctor - theres a whole lot of em that r in on it. theres the trafficking n they have a fighting ring and some other stuff. Doctor they treat the aliens like slaves they do horrible things to them'_

_'Okay Rose, calm down. Where are you?'_

One minute and thirty seconds ticked by without a response.

_'Rose?'_

Three minutes passed, and then—

_'I'm fine. There's nothing to worry about. I'll see you later, okay?'_

The Doctor stared at the phone in his hand, and then snorted in disgust before he pulled out his sonic screwdriver.

"All that and they can't even be bothered to mimic her texting style," he muttered. "Not that it would have saved them." He paused a moment to consider, and then—before he activated his sonic to trace the signal of the phone Rose had texted him from, texted one short response:

_'Rose - I'm coming to get you.'_


End file.
